Dec 11, 10:20 PM EST

Anti-Bush Drawing Called'Hate Speech'
By RON HARRIS of Associated Press

Associated Press WriterSAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An award-winning drawing blaming President Bush for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was pulled from a small-town exhibit over "insurance issues" after a businessman withdrew his $300 prize and called the piece a form of "hate speech."

Artist Chuck Bowden's drawing, "The Tactics of Tyrants Are Always Transparent," won second place in the Redwood Art Association's annual fall exhibit, held earlier this month in Eureka, Calif. In the 11-inch-by-14-inch drawing, a crown and halo-topped Bush stands on a grave, his hand dripping with blood as bodies fall to the ground from the World Trade Center towers in the distance.
Bowden called it a tribute to those who lost their lives in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and he acknowledged the piece was meant to place blame for the attacks squarely on the shoulders of the president.

But the work upset at least one sponsor. After Bowden's piece was deemed the second place winner by the lone judge, it was quietly bubble-wrapped and stuffed into a closet while 193 other works were prepared for the exhibit's public opening.

"They shouldn't call it `open to art,'" Bowden said of the contest's original call for entries. "They should call it, `open to Republican art' or `open to closed-minded art.'"